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Stanford University today announced two separate annual financial results. The Stanford Management Company reports return on its investment portfolio as of June 30, 2017. The university also reports the value of its endowment as of the close of its fiscal year, August 31, 2017.

Investment return

For the 12 months ending June 30, 2017, Stanford Management Company generated a 13.1 percent net investment return. The broad universe of U.S. colleges and universities generated a median 12.9 percent return for the same period, according to preliminary data tracked by Cambridge Associates. “We are pleased to report $3.2 billion of investment gains for the year. Although comprising only a quarter of the total portfolio, public equity holdings led our result with very strong absolute and relative performance,” said Robert Wallace, chief executive officer of Stanford Management Company.

For the last five and 10 years, respectively, Stanford generated a 9.5 percent and 5.8 percent annualized net return, versus the 7.9 percent and 4.4 percent annualized median returns for colleges and universities over the same time periods.

Stanford Management Company is the university’s investments office and manages Stanford’s $26.9 billion Merged Pool of total investments. The Merged Pool is the principal fund for investing the university’s endowment and also includes capital reserves of Stanford Health Care and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford, along with other long-term funds.

Endowment value

The value of the university’s endowment itself was $24.8 billion on August 31, 2017, the end of the university’s fiscal year. The endowment disbursed $1.2 billion to support academic programs and financial aid during the fiscal year, equal to 5.2 percent of the endowment’s value at the beginning of the fiscal year.

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